LIBRAM OF CONGRESS, 



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f UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. % 



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THE 



RIVER OF LIFE 



AND OTHER POEMS. 



(}i:ORGE P. CARR. 



BALTIMORE : 

T U R N F> U L L BROTHERS. 

1871. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 

GEORGE P. CARR, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



CONTENTS 



Dedication . . 


I 


The River of Life . 


• 4 
II 


Ode to Thomas Catt .... 


The Eagle ...... 


14 


Solomon's Temple . 


16 


Anthropos ...... 


18 


The Spirit of the Plague .... 


21 


Crime • • . . 


24 
26 


The City of Dreams ... 


Napoleon at St. Helena .... 


28 


Song — The Spirit of Battle 


35 


The Light-Seeker 


38 


The Temple of Light .... 


42 


Mardigras ••.... 


44 
49 

53 


The Daemon of the Still .... 


The Soul's Victory 


Baltimore .... 


69 
80 


The Ghost of Fashion .... 


The First Christmas Story .... 


America ••.... 


83 
87 


The Light of Love ...... 


L'Envoie ...... 




93 



DEDICATION. 

To Idalia. 

In the region of thought by the Valley of Time, 

Where floweth the River of Years, 
I found me a sword and a shield ; the glad chime 
Of their musical clashing was blent into rhyme. 

And enthralled and subdued all my fears. 

And I said I will conquer a mighty domain, 

An empire of grandeur and power ; 
And cities on land, and fleets on the main, 
And splendors of Nature and Art will I gain, 

And give them to thee as a dower. 

I called, and great armies arose on the land, 

And fleets gathered white on the sea ; 
For mine eye was a power, and my voice a command. 
And earth's honors lay full in the gift of my hand, 
Supported by fate and by thee. 

A ll) 



2 DEDICA TION. 

That march o'er the mountains, that cruise o'er the 
seas, 

Encompassed the visible world ; 
In a time-renowned city I rested at ease, 
'Mid a palaced perfection of all that could please, 

For my flag o'er the earth was unfurled. 

But the palace was dim, lacking light of thine eyes. 

The city was pallid and cold. 
And I said I will fly from this region of lies. 
And seek the true sky where her beauty shall rise. 

To illumine my life as of old. 

So I brought thee my vision of splendor and power, 

But thou gavest me never a smile ; 
Serenely disdaining so fleeting a dower. 
As a tinsel-wrought crown, and the rule of an hour. 

Supported by force and by guile. 

I now bring thee an oftering too humble by far 

To allure or thy heart or thy head, — 
A leaf for a sceptre, a flower for a star. 
Both plucked in a region of dimness afar. 
From a soil that is barren and dead. 

Where the myrtle and laurel luxuriant grew 
For the bards and the heroes of yore. 



DEDICA TION. 3 

Whose sweet songs and great deeds all the living 

shoots drew, 
Leaving but the dead trunks, through which cypress 

and yew 
Spring fresh from the rottening core. 

Yet perchance some sweet flowers and bright leaves 
of old time 

May remain, although stunted and frail, 
Which, woven in this age's action and rhyme. 
May flourish and grow in the gardens of Time 

To the stature of highest avail. 

Receive then this offering, this token of me, 

O woman unknowing of guile ! 
Its laurel and myrtle shall all be for thee ; 
And if cypress and yew be its portion, 'twill be 

A sweet death it will die in thy smile. 



THE RIVER OF LIFE. 

In the vale of fancy, where all things seem 
Like the flitting shapes of a troubled dream ; 
Where the God of Reason has lost his sway 
O'er its swarming hosts, and given way 
To the Demon of Chance, who rules the ground 
With his whimsical laws ; where, scattered around, 
Are forms of terror, and forms of mirth, 
And monstrous shapes which the upper earth 
Has never beheld ; where a happy race 
Of elves and fairies with airy grace 
Revel and dance in the moonbeams' light. 
Or shapes of darkness and demons of might 
Freeze the cowering blood with terror and fright,- 

Flows a river wide. 

On whose swelling tide, 

With motion airy and light. 

Glides many a barque 

Toward the region dark 

Where it enters the realm of night. 
(4) 



THE RIVER OF LIFE. 

Freighted with pleasure, or burdened with pain, 

Built for enjoyment, or built for gain. 

Barques of all sizes, small and great. 

Covered with idlers, or laden with freight ; 

Barques that idly bear along 

A merry crew, who with laugh and song 

Pass the fleeting hours j and barques that cleave 

Swiftly their way through the tide, and leave 

Their fellow-barques far out of sight. 

Speeding away toward the realms of night ; 

Beautiful barques with colors gay, 

Dancing along on their joyous way, 

Caring for nothing but sport and play ; 

And the funeral barge 

With its sacred charge. 

The consecrated urn, 

On the passing tide 

Down the river glide ; 

But they never, never return. 

Borne to the side of this mystic stream 
On the flitting wings of a midnight dream ; 
Watching the barques as they swept along. 
In pride or sorrow, with silence or song ; 



6 THE RIVER OF LIFE. 

Wondering on what was their purpose bent, 

Whence they had come, and whither they went, 

And longing with yearning intense and deep 

To know for what reason they ever keep 

Their course on the current that bears them down 

Into the night. 

Away from sight, 

Toward the land of the great unknown, — 
Sat a mortal, and mused on the wondrous theme 
While the barques swept by on the passing stream ; 

When, raising his eyes, 

With strange surprise, 

He saw before his sight 

The demon who dwells 

And rules by his spells 

In this region of terror and fright. 

And the mortal cried, " O Demon of Might, 
Who rulest this region of terror and fright, 
Tell me, I pray thee, tell me whence 
Are these gliding barques ? On what pretence 
Do they ride on the current that bears them down 

Into the night. 

Away from sight. 

Slowly fading one by one ? 



THE RFVER OF LIFE. 

Why do they ride 

On the downward tide, 

Each sweeping by in its turn ? 

And why, oh why. 

When they once pass by 

Do they never, never return ? " 

The Demon smiled with a fiendish smile. 
And thought to himself, " I will now beguile 
This simple mortal, and cause him to burn 
With intense desire and thirst to learn 
The secret of Fate, which God alone 
Can ever reveal, which is not known 
To me or my race ; then leave him to die 
Of the fierce and burning thirst that I 
Shall plant within him ; and hie to the vale 
And tell to my comrades the merry tale ; 

And the voices loud 

Of the mocking crowd. 

Laughing with fiendish glee. 

Shall echo the wail 

That tells the tale 

Of his dying agony." 



8 THE RIVER OF LIFE, 

So he said : " This river, whose rapid flight 
Bears the passing barques away from sight, 
Where its lessening stream from the vision fades, 
Has its fountain-head in the Land of Shades, 
Where Fate holds sway o'er a slumb'ring host 
Of human souls, who in Lethe lost 
Reason and thought and sense and will ; 
Yet a blind desire impels them still 
Toward the flowing current, and prompts a strife 
To embark once more on the River of Life ; 

To taste the sweets 

Youth's flower secretes, 

From Fate's poisonous mildews wrung. 

Which turn to gall 

When the senses pall 

And the dirge of youth is sung. 

" These passing barques which swiftly glide 

In joy or sorrow, in mirth or pride, 

On the fleeting waves, as they downward roll, 

Are guided each by a human soul. 

Some are powerful and stately and tall. 

Some are fragile and weak and small, 

Some are dismantled and torn and wrecked, 

Some fitted with pomp and splendor, and decked 



THE RIVER OE UEE. 9 

With silver and gold and precious stone ; 
Yet, weak or powerful, one by one 
They ride on the current, and each in turn 
Goes down the stream ; but shall never return." 
" But where do they ride 

On the downward tide ? 

And why, oh tell me why, 

When they reach that bourne, 

Do they never return ? ^ 

O Demon, tell me, why ? " 

The Demon chuckled with fiendish spite. 

And said : " As they pass away from sight, 

They, with never-ceasing motion, glide 

Toward the realms of night, on the other side ; 

Where the silence of death, in the gulf of the grave? 

Drowns the living freight of Life's downward wave. 

Toward its dreary realms does their purpose tend, 

In its dismal shades shall their journey end. 

In a night of terror, and silence, and gloom, 

In the shadow of death, in the vale of the tomb. 

Thither they ride 

On the downward tide ; 

And though they may fondly yearn 



lo THE RIVER OF LIFE 

For the scenes of life, 
For its pleasure and strife, 
They may never, never return." 

"But why do they come from the Land of Shades ? 
Why, when their form from the vision fades. 
And the fitful dream of life is past, 
With its sorrows and joys, must they find at last 
Their home in a land of horror and gloom ? 
Why must their journey end in the tomb ? 

Demon, tell me, why ? 
By the tortures of hell, 

1 implore thee, tell 

The secret before I die." 

The Demon laughed with a fiendish laugh, 

And vanished v/ithout reply ; 

While from all around. 

With a mocking sound. 

The echoes answered, " Die ! " 



ODE TO THOMAS CATT. 

Felonious feline, in disguising guise 

Of fur more black than this infernal night, 

Or the cutaneous cuticle that lies 

Dark and unpolished on the polished white 

Of eyeballs and of ivories freedmanite, — 

How doth my spirit sink dispirited. 

How doth my frail frame tremble in affright 

At thy weird voice ! Was it thy merit did 

Win it such power, or were its tones inherited ? 

Erratic ratifier of the house. 

Cat of catopsis, cat above all cats, 

Sole comfort of my soul, — is it a mouse, 

A rat, or ghosts of acrobatic bats. 

At whose sharp ears thou hurl'st the sharps and flats 

Of thy wild melody, which, like a file 

Grating a rusty saw, pierces the slats 

Of ebon-netted night, through which no smile 

Of daylight can the ebon-bonneted earth beguile ? 

(") 



12 ODE TO THOMAS CATT. 

Alas, I see it ! the catastrophe 
To which all common cats capitulate ! 
Thou serenadest thy heart's love ; and she, 
Sitting upon the arch of yonder gate, 
Arching her back to back her regal state, 
Frovvneth with lying eyes, contemptuously, 
Upon thy love's great agonies, which grate 
Not harshly on her willing ears. Oh why 
Doth the cold drag on she drag on thine agony ? 

Alas, I know not ! but I fear the nature 
Of cats has types in human ^<^/-egories ; 
Thy love is not the sole erratic creature 
Who with false frowns her true adorer worries, 
And chides the sorrows in whose smart she glories 
The world hath many such, and the unwritten 
Tales of love's curtailment formed into stories 
Would tell of many sorely scratched and bitten, 
Given the jilt, cold shoulder, and the mitten, 

Libelled and fined to wait, but finally 

To find their love received with tenderness. 

Take heart, feline infelix ; like thee, I 

Have loved, and poured the notes of my distress 

Forth into song, hoping I might impress 



ODE TO THOMAS CATT 13 

Her heart with love. I might be singing yet ; 
But I quit short, and you had better guess 
When my love thought me gone, she made a set 
For me, and since that time I've been her dearest pet. 

Take my advice, most infelicious cat. 

And you will find your love will win. Forget her. 

Cease your miauing, scratching, and all that, 

And treat Miss Catt as though you never met her ; 

Above all things, be sure that you don't let her 

Think she's the only cat of the whole heap. 

I'm sure you'll find that she will treat you better, 

Unto your side in trusting love she'll creep ; 

So cease your yowling, please, and let me go to sleep. 



THE EAGLE. 

Bird of the bended beak, 

Of fiery eye, 
Bird of the piercuig shriek, 

Thy home is high. 

I love thine eyes' fierce light, 

Thy plumage fair. 
Revere thy broad wings' might, 

Battling the air. 

Thou dost relume the shrouds 
Of my youth's dreams ; 

Like thee, above the clouds. 
Where sunlight gleams 

Eternal, would I dwell, 

My heavenly birth 
Scorning the binding spell 

Of the dull earth. 



(14) 



THE EAGLE. 

For thou hast been to me 

A luring star ; 
My thought, uncurbed like thee, 

Has flown afar : 

Flown o'er the heavenly gate 

To the bright throne. 
To the abyss of fate. 

The deeps of moan. 

Serenely pure and fair 

Is thy home's light ; 
Would that my feet might dare 

That lofty height ! 

Then earth should be to me 

But a past dream ; 
I would seek wisdom's tree. 

And life's pure stream. 

No more to doubt and pine. 

Fearless and free. 
Where heavenly splendors shine 

My flight should be. 



15 



SOLOMON'S TEMPLE. 

Within the holy city stood a temple 
Which held the secret of that perfect light 
Before whose mystery the senses tremble 
At the first step from the surrounding night. 

In wisdom, strength and beauty well secured 
Rose stately columns of the olden time, 
And the high stars with their pure light allured 
To dwell among their lofty haunts sublime. 

In memory of God's holy prophet founded 
From pave mosaic gleamed the blazing star, 
Emblem that with its tesseled band surrounded 
Showed life its blessings and God's eye afar. 

From east to west, between the north and south. 

The busy artisans its fabric reared. 

Quick was each hand, and silent was each mouth, 

For all those toiling thousands hoped and feared. 

(i6) 



SOLOMON'S TEMPLE. 1 7 

Earth gave to it the treasures of her womb, 
And Lebanon his crown of cedars shed. 
"We offer it to Thee, O God ! iUume 
It with thy presence bright," the master said. 

A thing of beauty, from the senseless quarry, 
Embodiment of thought and will, it rose, 
Perpetuating unto earth the story 
Of mind triumphant o'er material foes. 

Its stones are crumbled to their kindred earth, 
Its cedars fallen ne'er to rise again ; 
But the bright lore that gave its structure birth 
Shall live for aye within the minds of men. 

For still the apprentice plies his busy task, 
The fellows still their minds and hearts prepare 
In loftier chambers purer light to bask, 
And the weird secrets of the Master share. 

Its sure foundation in immortal souls, 

Its walls its free sons' willing hearts and hands, 

Joining all earth's antagonistic poles 

In brotherhood, the ideal temple stands. 



ANTHROPOS. 

At break of day, he rode away 

Upon the road of life, 
To seek him fame, to gild his name 

With feats of valorous strife. 

Upon the way, he met a gay 

And glittering cavalier ; 
With spurs impressed, and lance in rest, 

He charged him without fear. 

He laid him low beneath the blow, 
And Wealth was at his hand j 

Then come with me," he said, " and be 
The slave of my command." 

A bearded knight of wondrous height 
Next barred his onward way ; 

He bore him down, and seized his crown, 
And Power before him lay. 



(i8) 



ANTHROPOS. 19 

" Join thou my train." But see, again 
A valiant foe appears, 
A tongue inwrought with gems of thought 
Is the device he wears. 

He pierced his side. " No farther ride," 
The fair knight cried in shame ; 
" Thy race is done, thine object won, . 
For thou hast conquered Fame." 

Rejoiced to see his vassals three, 

He turned the homeward road ; 
But ashes slept and willows wept 

Above his youth's abode. 

He rode in sport to fashion's court. 

And 'mid the brilliant throng. 
He was the prize of lovely eyes, 

The theme of toast and song. 

At tournament all eyes were bent 
On him ; He took his stand. 
'■'• Where is the knight will dare to fight 
Him of the conquering hand?" 



2 ANTHROPOS. 

There came a wight, strangely bedight, 

His visor was a skull, 
His steed was thin to bone and skin. 

His spear an icicle. 

He raised his hand and shook his brand ; 

" Shall / fight such as you ? " 
The quick wight saw his armor's flaw, 

And pierced him through and through. 

Now cold and wdiite, this wondrous knight, 
And Honor, Wealth, and Fame, 

Drink to his soul in many a bowl ; 
But laugh his power to shame. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE PLAGUE. 

The damp 
Of the swamp, 
My home, 
From its lonely wastes I roam 
Afar o'er the peopled earth, 
Drowning the sound of its mirth 
In the knell 
Of the bell 
Whose echoes tell 
The story of my birth. 

The stair 
Of the air 
I tread 
To my chariot overhead ; 

To my chariot in the clouds, 
I summon my train of shrouds ; 
We descend. 
And we blend 
With the airs that wend 
Their way through the city's crowds. 



(21) 



THE SPIRIT OF THE PLAGUE, 

They reel 
As they feel 
My breath, 
Chill with the damp of death ; 

Childhood and age are in blight, 
Nerveless is manhood's might ; 
The thrall 
Of the pall 
Over them all 
Casteth a shade of night. 

The shade 
Whose aid 
Enclouds 
The waiting, beckoning shrouds, 

Whose folds droop down from the air 
In sympathetic despair 
With those 
Who shall close 
Their fear-born woes 
In the arms of my final care. 

The king 
Shall fling 
From him 
His sceptre to suit my whim; 



THE SPIRIT OF THE PLAGUE. 

The warrior drops his sword, 
The miser leaves his horde, 

For they 

Are clay 

And must obey 
My will and heed my word. 

O God! 
My rod 
Of power 
' Is a more than kingly dower, 
For pallid hosts bow down 
In dust before my frown ; 
My reign 
Hath lain 
A wide domain 
Prostrate before my crown. 

New Orleans, Sept. i, 1867. 



CRIME. 

Glad flowed the rivulet down to the river, 
Glad flowed the river unto the sea ; 
Murmured the rivulet happiness ever, 
Seaward the river bore on in its glee. 
Glad were the wild sea-waves, 
Wide through the crystal caves 
Sounded the laugh of the mermaids at play ; 
Ocean's fair daughters sought through the waters 
Treasures of beauty and gladness each day. 

Two hostile warriors came, burning with anger's 

flame, 
Met they in wrath at the rivulet's side ; 
No time for angry words, forth flashed their ready 

swords. 
Fiercely and long they fought, bleeding they died. 
Blended their ebbing blood with the rivulet's flood ; 
Blent with the river's course, blent with the sea ; 
Deep in the crystal caves sought the red drops their 

graves, 
Sought for the rest and peace which might not be. 

(24) 



CRIME. 25 

Sad flows the rivulet down to the river, 

Sad flows the river unto the sea ; 

Burdened with crime from which nought can deliver, 

Sorrow hath mastered their first melody. 

Wide through the coral groves, far through the pearl 

alcoves, 
Pallid and dumb roam the ocean's sad daughters ; 
Flee they in dim despair from crimson eyes that 

glare 
Vengefully out from the grief-shrouded waters. 



THE CITY OF DREAMS. 

Within the region of my dreams 

There stands a city fair ; 
Its streets are lit with genial beams, 

And balmy is its air ; 
Broad are its walks, its gardens bright, 

And like a palace seems 
Each house that crowns in marble white 

The city of my dreams. 

No shade of storm-cloud ever fell 

Upon its gorgeous domes ; 
Nor may the ghoul of sorrow dwell 

Within its happy homes ; 
Ne'er rang from out its glittering spires 

A funeral knell, there gleams 
No hostile blade ; nor faction fires 

The city of my dreams. 

No hungry beggar cries for bread, 
His bars no captive beats, 

(26) 



THE CITY OF DREAMS. 27 

Nor revels pride, in riot fed, 

Nor wine, nor passion heats ; 
No public crime, no private sin. 

For wealth and plenty teems 
Alike for every dweller in 

The city of my dreams. 

Oft have I loitered on each street, 

Beside each fountain lain ; 
My spirit owns the illusion sweet. 

And seeks its haunts again. 
There dwelleth one whose smile requites 

The loss of waking schemes, 
The maid whose brilliant beauty lights 

The city of my dreams. 

Twin stars of hope which Heaven endues 

With magnet power, her eyes ; 
Her cloud of hair with golden hues 

Of sunset splendors vies ; 
Her voice, like tone of distant bell, 

Or purl of cooling streams. 
Entrances 'neath its magic spell 

The citv of my dreams. 



NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA. 

The sun was descending within the far ocean, 
And cast o'er the waters the light of his smile, 
To where, in the midst of the billows' commotion, 
Arose the bleak rocks of St. Helena's isle. 

There, stately and proud, on a bold promontory. 
Stood the world-renowned hero, the idol of France, 
In his features reflecting the .sunset of glory, 
As he gazed on its splendors with eagle-like glance. 

Thus, thus, he exclaimed, my life's glory is setting 
In the gulf of the years, 'mid oblivion's waves. 
And my last glance will see, through its course of 

regretting, 
But a tear-mist of spray o'er an archway of graves. 

The crown of the billows, the pride of the waters, 
Was the sweet isle of Corsica, land of my birth ; 
Her sons were most valiant, most lovely her 

daughters. 
And noble the household that graced every hearth. 
(38) 



NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA. 



29 



The winds of the sky and the waves of the ocean 
Bore a message of love and of peace to my heart ; 
My soul was a prayer and my life a devotion, 
For I felt as of God and of Nature a part. 

As clear as the deeps of the crystalline fountains 
Was my young heart, revelling in boyhood's glad 

dream. 
When after night's darkness the heights of the 

mountains 
Blushed roseate and smiled in the morning's pure 

beam, 

I said, thus mankind, from the darkness of ages, 
The glad light of knowledge and truth shall release ; 
Till the soul every restless aspiring assuages 
In the fountains of light, by the river of peace. 

O visions of splendor ! lost, lost, I bewail ye : 
The sun and the sky were as bright as life's morning, 
When through vale and hill the invader's reveille 
Re-echoed in notes of the battle's dread warning. 

The blast of the storm 'neath whose malice-born 

madness 
Our soU turned to graves and our rivers to blood, 



3 o' A'^ '^'OL E ON AT S7. HEL ENA . 



And our skies' light of hope and our sea's smile of 

gladness 
Grew dark as the shade of the anger of God. 

Ah, bright was the soul of the gallant Paoli, 
And fierce on the foe gleamed the flash of his sword ; 
But his forces, though brave, were discomfited wholly, 
And the eagles of France in proud victory soared. 

Our island was conquered, the conflict was ended ; 
The living returned to their homes, and the slain 
By the breath of the spirit of battle were blended 
With the wave of the stream and the dust of the plain. 

But peace and repose to my country returning, 
Nor peace nor repose unto me could impart ; 
For the tierce flame of -war, in my life-current burning, 
Had withered the hopes that once bloomed in my 
heart. 

And when the proud sun from the Orient, in gladness, 
To his goal in the zenith surmounted the sky, 
Then far down the west faded into night's sadness. 
Yet lit with his splendors the planets on high ; 

I said, thus the warrior, from darkness ascending, 
In the heights of his fam? is admired and adored ; 



NAPOLEON AT ST HELENA. 31 

And back from his clay with the elements blending, 
In the heirs of his power gleams the light of his sword. 

Borne up by the force of this feeling within me, 
In the vanward of France with fierce valor I fought ; 
Pursuing the hope whose fruition should win me 
Dominion o'er matter, and power over thought. 

But Nature, or Fate, had implanted within me 
The ulcer of death and the blight of decay ; 
What joy in renown or in power could I win me. 
When the life which they gilded was fading away 1 

In vain on my valor Ailse fortune had smiled, 
My glory was ashes, my splendor a dearth, 
For the woman I loved more than life bore no child 
To continue my power and my name to the earth. 

But power was sweeter than life or affection ; 
No pity could save her, no mercy could screen, 
A ruthless decision dissolved the connection 
That bound to my fortunes my loved Josephine. 

The bolts of fatality rent us asunder, 

The mandate of destiny bade her to go ; 

Its lightnings had blasted my heart, and the thunder 

Of war in my ears drowned the wail of her woe. 



32 



NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA. 



The Austrian Princess in wedlock caressed rae ; 
Power smiled upon power, and the clouds that 

o'ercast, 
Were tinted with joy when our infant's smile blest me : 
I laughed by his cradle, forgetting the past. 

Once more at the trumpet of war the proud eagles 
Of France and my soul spread their wings to the 

breeze ; 
For the nations allied sent their hireling beagles 
Our power to defy on the lands and the seas. 

The eagles were humbled ; the soul of the master 
Was dimmed by the shadow of utter defeat. 
Alas ! that my life should survive the disaster, 
That the highways of destiny ever should meet. 

Now from the lone sands of my sea-prisoned island 
I gaze on the limitless waste of the waves. 
And picture forth battles of valley and highland ; 
Until foam turns to shrouds and blue arches to 



The shrouds of the hopes that my bosom had 

cherished, 
Which genius and valor allied might attain. 



NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA. 33 

The tear-clouded graves of the thousands who 

perished 
To prove that my skill and their efforts were vain. 

Uncertain and dim on my being's horizon 
Is the unknown infinite that waiteth my breath. 
Ah, would eye might pierce to the region that lies on 
The Lethean limit, the boundaries of death ! 

Or is there no limit? And can the fierce fire 
That burned from my heart every passion but fame's, 
In the gloom of fatality's darkness expire. 
Leaving earth, sea, or air not one trace but my 
name's ? 

I know not ; but over my spirit there flashes 
The light of a hope, the belief that the flame 
Of my life will not die ; it will live in my ashes. 
Or a spirit of ocean, of air, or of flame ; 

Will rise through gradations of upward progression 
Beyond the dull spell of the crystal. and clod, 
To the life that is fated to gain its possession, 
Then flash forth in power like the glory of God. 

And earth will again own the sway of a master. 
The genius of peace and the glory of war, 



34 NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA. 



Whose name shall arise o'er defeat and disaster 
And stand in fame's zenith an unfading star. 

Aad the nations, beholding his pride and his glory, 
As his empire extends and his conquests advance, 
Will say he recalleth the hero of story. 
The world-renowned warrior, the worship of France. 



SONG. 

The Spirit of Battle. 

" Voice me some stormy song of sword and lance, 
Which rushing upward from a hero's he.irt, 
Straight rose upon a thousand leaguered hills, 
Ragged and wild as pyramid of flame." 

Alexander Smith. 

As the torrent that falls from the mountain, 

As the wave that comes up from the sea, 

As the jet that ascends from the fountain, 

Is the spirit of battle in me. 

It nerves me, it warms me, it thrills me, 

It lifts me all dangers above ; 

It changes my nature, and fills me 

With a fierce and a death-bearing love. 

As the lavas that mutter and thunder, 
As the flames that consume what they love, 
As the roar of the sea cleft in sunder 
By the bolt from the cloud-rack above ; 
So murmurs my soul at inaction, 
So my love takes the life of my foe. 



(35) 



36 THE SPIRIT OF BATTLE. 

And tlius, 'neath my war-shock, the faction 
That dares me is cleft and lain low. 

As unto the sun soars the eagle, 

As unto the moon rise the tides, 

As 'mid starry splendors the regal 

And light-encrowned spirit abides; 

So riseth my soul to the battle, 

So yearn all my sinews for war, 

And thus, o'er the smoke and the rattle, 

I gleam and I flash like a star. 

Silence lies on the mountain and valley. 
Like a God on a landscape of spheres ; 
The winds have departed to rally 
The clouds to a tempest of tears ; 
Not a leaf or a blade is in niotion, 
The rivers transparently run 
To a far-distant glimpse of the ocean, 
At rest in the smile of the sun. 

Hark ! hark ! from the mountain a rustle. 
And murmur of soldiery tells ; 
And up from the valley the bustle 
Of foemen advances and swells. 
Swift, swift, they rush on to the battle, 



THE SPIRIT OF BATTLE. 

Bright gleam the insignia of war ; 

I love the sharp shock and fierce rattle 

With a fervor no sorrow can mar. 

The spirit of silence in sorrow 

May fly from the sad winds that moan 

O'er the eyes that shall see no to-morrow ; 

The clouds to black grief may be blown, 

The rivers may sicken with blood-drifts, 

The air with a horror of smells, 

The sky may lament through her cloud-rifts, 

The sea through his voices of shells ; 

But I will rejoice in fierce gladness, 
My foemen are conquered and slain, 
Unknowing of sorrow or sadness, 
Unheeding of anguish or pain ; 
For blood is more savory than wine is. 
And flesh is more tasteful than bread, 
And victory's song more divine is 
Than craven laments for the dead. 



THE LIGHT- SEEKER 

A Legend of the East. 

When his new-opened eyes 
Turned to their kindred skies, 
Shrunk not their dazzled sight 
From the refulgent light : 
Child of the sun he seemed 
By day ; at night he dreamed 
Of the pure star whose love 
Beamed on him from above. 

Youth came, and love and fame 
Wooed him with ardent flame ; 
From philosophic page, 
From lips of learned age. 
From maidens bright, in trance 
He seemed to turn his glance, 
With mystic power endowed 
To pierce th' obscuring cloud. 



(38) 



THE LIGHT-SEEKER. 39 

Love's gentle languishment 
Brought him no heart's content ; 
Earth's lore filled not his mind \ 
Nor power o'er human-kind 
Sought he. The sun by day 
Cheered him ; when died its ray, 
" Love, light, and power are far," 
He said, "in yon lone star." 

Love withered, friendship died. 
Age thinned his body's pride, 
Nor home, nor wife, nor child 
Cheered him ; but still he smiled. 
And when his weary feet 
Burned with the desert's heat ; 
When hunger, cold, or storm. 
Or thirst assailed his form, 

Not for a trusting heart 

To bear life's pain and smart 

He prayed ; but aye he said, 

Unbowed his hoary head, 

" Allah, give unto me 

Fruits of the wisdom-tree. 

Draughts of life's quenchless fountain 

Which crowns th' eternal mountain." 



40 



THE LIGHT-SEEKER 

Arabia's blazing sun 
Looks on a skeleton ; 
Its moon-reflected light, 
Piercing the curtained night, 
Finds with enquiring beams, 
And lights with ghostly gleams, 
Two orbless sockets, turning 
Above as if in yearning 

For the bright home o'erhead 
Where life and soul are fled, 
To seek the light whose glory 
Illumed their youtiiful story. 
The light that could assuage 
The thirst of parched age, 
And the dead halls relume 
Of soul-deserted gloom. 

In diamond-spangled halls, 
Of pearl and sapphire w^alls. 
Where heavenly music quells 
Remembrance of earth's spells, 
Where Allah's glories blaze 
In gem-reflected rays, 
Dwelleth a soul more bright 
Than all the sons of light. 



THE LIGHT-SEEKER 41 

Their beauty fairer seems 
Than souls of faded dreams, 
Whom Allah sends to wait 
Before his palace gate, 
From whom receiveth he 
Fruits of the fadeless tree. 
Draughts of the quenchless fountain 
That laves the holy mountain. 



D' 



THE TEMPLE OF LIGHT. 

Oh for a glimpse of the glory whose gleaming, 
Rending the clouds and the darkness of night, 
Floodeth the sense in the sleep-myth of dreaminj 
With rays from the temple of life and of light. 

Bright as the goal of our youth's aspiration, 
Its memory dwells on the wakening sense, 
Mocking the shade of earth's realization, 
Dwarfing the grandeur of worldly pretence. 

Radiant and fair in their spirit-lit splendor. 
Gaze through its portals the wept and the lost, 
Luring us on with their love-glances tender 
To regions by shadow of darkness uncrossed. 

Treasures of progress and pleasure supernal 
Flourish for aye in its bouRdless demesne ; 
Honors unchanging, possessions eternal. 
Win they who enter its chambers serene. 
(42) 



THE TEMPLE OF LIGHT. 43 

Melodies float through its gardens forever, 
Born of the hopes and the loves of the soul ; 
Heaven-won notes whose vibrations dissever 
Spirit from sense and from passion's control. 

Storm may invade it not, cloud may not shade it, 
Hushed are its winds and unruffled its waves ; 
Plague may not sadden nor warrior invade it ; 
Its heirs know no sorrow, its soil has no graves. 

Love is its law, and Omniscience its master ; 
Truth, light, and knowledge, illumine its portals ; 
Oh but to win 'mid earth's dark and disaster, 
The light and the song of the happy immortals ! 



M A R D I G R A S . 

A Story of New Orleans. 

The city was alive with boisterous mirth, 
And masqueraders thronged the thoroughfare ; 
Bacchus and Comus seemed to rule the earth, 
And Momus laughed along the perfumed air. 

In the crowd I met a Domino ; he seemed 
A priest or student, and his restless eyes 
From his dark mask in feverish longing beamedj 
Reading each passer-by in searchful guise. 

Among the throng who viewed the revelry. 
In innocence, unguarded and alone. 
Came a fair daughter of proud chivalry ; 
Her hair luxurious robed her to her zone. 

I knew her for a star of fasiiion's proud 
And most select and heartless constellation, 
Who had rather lie dead in a point-lace shroud 
Tiian live in calico and humble station. 

(44) 



MARDIGRAS. 



45 



My masquer clasped her hand and gave her greeting, 

As is the custom on a carnival day ; 

" Long have I sought," he said, " this welcome 

meeting, 
And now, proud woman, I will have my say." 

The lady blushed and feigned to strive quite hard, 
But something in his manner seemed to quell her ; 
He joined her walk along the boulevard, 
And this is what I heard the sad wight tell her : 

" On this bright day of revel and of gladness 
Loudest of laughter and of mirth is mine. 
Yet 'neath my hollow mask a robe of sadness 
Its choking weeds about my heart doth twine. 

"A heart with but one purpose — the one thought 
Of meeting thee among the passing throng, 
To pour- into thine ear a story fraught 
With the deep burden of life's bitter wrong. 

" For 'neath my mask thou mayst not see the shame 

Blushing a heart too madly, wildly lost. 

Nor beneath thine may I detect the flame 

Of love or scorn that cheers or checks my boast. 



46 MARDIGRAS. 

" So shall my lips be free to tell the tale 
Thine ear may never, never hear again ; 
My heart shall burst the adamantine mail 
Which did and will its cherished hopes restrain 

" For I have loved thee, deeply, fondly loved, 
Since first thy glorious beauty blest mine eyes, 
And each succeeding day has doubly proved 
I could not, may not, ne'er can break the ties 

"That bind my heart's pulsations unto thine 
So closely that my life thy mirror is, 
And as my magnet thoughts thy mood divine, 
I grieve in sorrow, or rejoice in bliss. 

" I dare not tell thee mid the unmasked throng 
Who scoff at love in wealth and pride's disdain ; 
Alone with thee, it were a double wrong 
To tell a love that were but mutual pain, 

" Rejected or received ; for hope's twin stars 
That might have lured us to a common goal. 
Are parted wide by elemental wars. 
Our natures own a different control. 



MARDIGRAS. 47 

" Thine, of ambition and of fashion born, 

Smiles from wealth's tower on life's embattling 

wave ; 
Mine, fame's pale hope, pursued through clouds of 

scorn, 
Finds its full splendor but beyond the grave. 

"For thou, in pomp of fashion's empty whirl. 
Wilt charm, and pique, and rule thy narrow world ; 
The woman's lips in laughing scorn will curl 
At the wild hopes thy dreaming youth unfurled. 

"While I, secluded from unwelcome strife, 
My friends the pen, the pencil, and the page, 
On fancy's canvas paint the ideal of life, 
And bear the dreams of boyhood into age. 

" Yet memory oft shall lift the fatal veil 
That hides the happiness we might not win. 
And bright, through life's tear-clouded sky, shall sail 
The rainbow glory of v;hat might have been. 

" Farewell ! from heart to heart a last farewell. 
When next we meet let no unkind eye borrow 
Traces of the wild tale I dared to tell ; 
Faces are masked to-dav, but hearts to morrow.'' 



48 



MARDTGRAS. 



He said, and plunged into the surging crowd, 
Laughing a wild, a weird, and ghostly laugh, 
Such as might echo from a walking shroud, 
Or startle 'neath a marbled epitaph. 

She turned death-pale ; I helped her to her carriage, 
And sent her home, and then I walked and mused : 
Sure there will be a funeral or marriage, 
That tender youth will die if he's refused. 

I saw them both again, when after dark it 
Is law for each one to unmask and show phiz ; 
The lady was a butcher from French market, 
The sombre youth a milliner from Sophie's. 



THEt)^MON OF THE STILL. 

A PALACE rich and rare 
Rears its dome in upper air, 
And with gorgeous arch and pillar courts the light 
and warmth of day ; 

But its lower w^alls are rotten, 
And within its vaults, forgotten, 
Lie the nameless shapes of horror which the 
artisan Decay, 

Destroying never. 
Changing forever, 
Moulds at will 
In the dark and noisome dungeons of the Palace of 
the Still. 

High within this chambered palace 
Sits a rare and curious chalice. 
From the tesseled marble rising in the semblance of 
a throne, 

Whose concavity transparent. 
Throned within its depths apparent, 

E (49) 



go THE DAiMON OF THE STILL. 



Shows the monarch whose dominion all within the 
palace own : 

The fiery king 
Whose praises ring, 
While they fill 
To his health, from all the vassals of the monarch 
of the Still. 

Once each vassal at the v^^assail 
Deemed the fact established past all 
Shade of doubting, that their monarch was a form of 
kingly mien ; 

For a many-colored curtain 
Cast for aye its shade uncertain, 
And he hung it loose about him that his shape 
might not be seen ; 

And each reveller swore 
That never before 
Had king skill 
Of hand, or power of body, like the monarch of the 
Still. 

But at length their revel 
Woke to life the devil, 
Devil of revenge and malice that was sleeping in 
his breast ; 



THE DMMON OF THE STILL. 



51 



From his throne the monarch walked down, 
To the banquet hall he stalked down, 
And uncurtained stood before them in his nature 
full confessed ; 

And each vassal 
At the wassail. 
Pale and chill, 
Saw a hideous mocking daemon in the monarch of 
the Still. 

Fearful now they bow before him : 
Now they hate, yet must adore him. 
And while casts the curtain o'er him aye its color- 
changing shade ; 

Oft the bards repeat the story 
Of his high estate, before he, 
By his treach'rous mother Nature to man's cunning 
art betrayed. 

Was recrowned, 
And was bound, 
'Gainst his will, 
To become the potent monarch of the Palace of 
the Still. 

When the new-made earth received him 
From the elements which sfrieved him — 



52 



THE DAEMON OF THE STILL, 



Grieved his presence lost forever from the heaven- 
exploring train — 

Gave she unto him each cereal 
Known beneath the blue empyreal, 
And in green and golden splendor reigned he 
" Spirit of the Grain ; " 
His nature love 
Won from above, 
He began 
His reign as benefactor and as nourisher of 
man. 

But ungrateful eyes were on him, 
And man's. craft and avarice won him 
From his embryonic castle in the germule of the 
grain ; 

From the light of heaven they tore him, 
To infernal vaults they bore him. 
Took him from his throne and sceptre 'to an ordeal 
whose pain 

Changed love to malice ; 
Throned in the chalice 
'Gainst his will, 
Vengeful now he rules forever as the Daemon of 
the Still. 



THE SOUL'-S VICTORY. 

In a lonely ,^dell, 

By^a'"moss-grown rock, 

Is a fathomless well 

Whose echoes mock 

The voice of the visitor ; 

There dwelleth the ghoul 

Who once bound my soul 

In her magical net. 

I can never forget 

The night when I met with her. 

The moon was as pale 

As the face of a corse ; 

The stars through the veil 

Of the clouds in remorse 

On the shrouded earth looked down : 

A resistless control 

Came over my soul, 

And enticed my feet 

Down the silent street, 

Away from the sleeping town. 



(S3) 



54 



'the souls victory. 

Oh, would that my heart 

Might have ceased to beat, 

Or would that my art 

Had delayed my feet. 

Nor prompted my soul to err ! 

But I was alone 

In an evil zone, 

For I had dared seek 

What tongue may not speak 

Nor symbols of earth confer. 

For the powerful lore, 

My soul did not fear it, 

The sages of yore 

Had won from the spirit 

Who rules the earth and the air ; 

The lore that can lure 

From above, or secure 

The aid of the spirits 

Whose darkness inherits 

The desolate realm of despair. 

I sought out the rock 
In the silent dell : 
'Twas a moss-draped block 
On a grave-like swell ; 



THE sours VICTORY. ' 55 

And I stooped down by its side 

And traced weird signs 

On its broken lines, 

Then with outstretched arms 

Made the pass of charms, 

And the mystic numbers tried. 

It was thrice three times 
That I tried the spell, 
As the distant chimes 
Of the village bell 
Proclaimed the noon of the night. 
Three times three times 
The unwritten rhymes 
I said, and with wand 
Of the burning brand 
I drew the circle of light. 

The pallid moon shivered 
And hid in the clouds. 
The fading stars quivered 

'Neath mist-woven shrouds. 

And rocked was the earth with a groan. 

Oh, spirit of might ! 

Oh, giver of light ! 

In the glittering star 



56 THE sours VICTORY. 

Of thy palace afar, 

7'he thrall of the spell thou must own. 

Adown from the throne 
Of the glittering spheres, 
The soul of a moan 
Brought reply to my cars. 
In accent ^olian, pure : 
" While shade of one error, 
While love, pride, or terror 
Doth darken thy spirit, 
Thou mayst not inherit 
The power my high aid to secure. 

" Who burneth with love 
Or chilleth with fear, 
Looketh humbly above. 
Or below with a sneer, 
Renounceth his heavenly birth ; 
But I give thee, in aid 
Of the thrall thou hast made. 
The power to compel 
The spirits who dwell 
In the deeps of the shadowy earth." 



THE SOU US VICTORY. 57 

" Oh, spirit of might, 

In thine angel dome ! 

Oh, spirit of light, 

In thy star-gemmed home ! 

A mortal my spirit constrains." 
" I may not forget her, 

Or loosen the fetter 

Of pride for her state, 

Of fear for her fate, 

While life-blood has course in these veins." 

"More bright unto me 
Is the light of her eyes 
Than the pure forms that be 
The delight of the skies. 
More sweet than the heavenly choir 
Is the tone of her voice. 
I receive as my choice 
Command of the spectre 
Whose aid may protect her : 
I summon, I call, I desire." 

Earth seemed in the rack 
Of finality's doom. 
The sky was as black 
As the vault of a tomb ; 



58 THE sours VICTORY. 

To the sight of my soul there uprose 
A form from the well. 
" The slave of the spell, 
I come to fulfil 
The wish of thy will, 
And the myth of thy search to disclose." 

" Oh, spirit of air, 

By sin weighed to earth ! 

Oh, soul in despair 

Of heavenly birth ! 

Shall I wed the beloved of my heart? " 
"Thou her heart shalt command, 

But another her hand ; 

For the law of her fate 

Dooms the pride of her state 

To be bartered for gold in life's mart." 

" Oh, soul of despair, 
The spirits of earth 
Won the secrets of air 
From their heavenly birth, 
Where rests the weird lore of the spell 
That gaineth all wealth. 
Youth, beauty, and health. 
With art to command - . 



THE sours J'ICTORY. 59 

The heart and the hand, 

And the homage of earth to compel ? 

" That lore's strange learning- 
Dark demons defend ; 
But if, in yearning. 
Thou darest descend 
With me through the deeps of the well, 
The force of thy daring, 
Unchecked by despairing, 
May win from their grasp 
The volume whose clasp 
Confineth the scroll of the spell." 

The pale moon in terror 

Looked out from the cloud. 

The stars on my error 

Their solemn eyes bowed ; 

I answered, " Dark spirit, I dare ! " 

Convulsed was the ground, 

And opened the mound. 

Together v/e fell 

Adown through the well, 

To regions of guilt and despair. 



6o THE sours VICTORY. 

Oh, tongue may not speak, 

Or pen may not write, 

Lest demons should wreak 

Upon me their spite 

For the secret oath I had broken ; 

The soul that has ever 

Descended, may never 

Reveal in the glare 

Of earth's upper air 

Suspicion or symbol or token. 

The descent I had dared, 

Unharmed in falling. 

The clasped scroll I had scared 

From fiends appalling, 

By virtue of loftier will. 

Youth, beauty, and health. 

Affluence of wealth, 

Were mine, and a castle 

Whose splendor surpassed all. 

Was reared as the pride of my ski] 

But with me forever, 
In walking or sitting. 



THE sours VICTORY. 6i 

On each good endeavor 

In dark menace flitting, 

And shading my soul when I dreamed, . 

Was the presence m}^ spell 

Had evoked from the well : 

My shadow's twin-shadow she seemed. 

Unhallowed and dread 

Was her shape and guise, 

The words that she said 

Were horrible lies 

That lured my soul on to despair ; 

The lava of hell 

Lit her eye's deep cell, 

Her robe v/as a pall, 

And wide over all 

Streamed the life-chilling mist of her hair. 

My love's love grew cold, 

Her heart w^as estranged j 

She said, '' Though not old, 

Thy nature is changed ; 

For the love and the faith of thy youth 

Forever have left thee, 

And fate has bereft thee 

Of those pure gems whose rays 

F 



62 THE SOUL'S VICTORY. 

First kindled love's blaze 
Upon my heart's altar of truth. 

" For power is th}^ god, 
And pleasure thy good, 
The dross of the clod 
Is more than the food 
Earth's bosom supplieth to thee ■ 
Thou seek'st to command 
The heart and the hand 
Thy prayer should implore ; 
Having ceased to adore, 
Thou hast forfeited power over me. 

" But I am enthralled 
By a holier spell, 
My spirit is called 
In a region to dwell 
Where falsehood pervadeth no breath." 
She said, and was pale ; 
Skill could not avail ; 
She died in my arms, 
I enrobed her charms 
For their vault in the mansions of death. 



THE SOUL'S VICTORY. 63 

My power was a curse, 

My life was a pall_, 

My gold gilt the hearse 

That carried my all, 

The prize of my being's aspiring. 

I rushed from my castle, 

My quick footsteps passed all, 

And far from the frown 

Of the peopled town 

I fled with my ghost of desiring. 

I sought out the well 
By the moss-draped rock, 
In the ghostly dell 
Where the echoes mock 
The voice of the visitor; 
From each canopied cloud 
There beckoned a shroud, 
The stars were nails driven 
In the coffin of heaven. 
Concealing the spirit of her 

Of whom death bereft me. 
" Great spirit," I cried, 
" Mine error hath left me. 

Is humbled my pride. 



64 • THE SOULS VICTORY. 

And earth has no share in my love ; 

She whom I have cherished 

Is vanished, is perished 

From earth, and, as bright 

As thine arrows of I'ght. 

She reign eth and dwelleth above." 

Three times three times 

O'er the secret lines, 

Th' unwritten rhymes 

And the mythic signs, 

Hailed the twelfth-told chime of the bell, 

And the burning brand 

In a fearless hand. 

In a ghostly white. 

Drew the circle light. 

And the bowed heavens looked on the spell. 

" Oh, spirit of might. 
In thy dwelling afar ! 
Oh, master of light, 
In thy palace-built star ! 
Thine aid and thy blessing I crave ; 
Senses vapors disperse. 
Let me see and converse 
With her ; let my love 



THE sours VICTORY 65 

For a spirit remove 

The spell of the Lethean wave." 

Ado w 11 from the slope 

Of the glittering spheres, 

The soul of a hope 

Brought reply to my ears : 

Through sorrow salvation is won ; 

Thy guerdon is granted ; 

The shadow that haunted 

Is called from thy side, 

And with thee shall bide 

Thy light-becrowned child of the sun." 

Now with me forever, 

In waking or dreaming, 

On each high endeavor 

Her holy smile beaming, 

Indwelleth the prayer of my soul ; 

By her art is riven 

The vault of the heaven, 

And through the bright portals 

I see the immortals 

Who beckon me on to life's goal. 



66 THE SOUL'S VICTORY. 

Oh, falser than hell 

Are the spirits of earth ; 

But the angels who dwell 

From their heavenly birth 

In regions of hope and of light, 

Are pure as the beams 

Of the glory that streams 

Adown from the dwelling 

Where music is swelling 

An anthem of praise to His might, 

Who reigneth and dwelleth 

Unchanging above. 

Whose glory excelleth 

Conception of love ; 

The stars are the gems of his throne, 

The sun is its light, 

Its curtain the night, 

From mortals defending 

The light whose unending 

Can be borne bv immortals alone. 



B A L T I M ORE. 

She sits upon a pedestal 
Of hills^ancl vales, that rise and fall 
Like waves of an enchanted sea ; 
She hath a queenly, matron air ; 
Her children are the brave, the fair, 
The beautiful, the bold, the free. 

Commerce, and art, and science reign 
Coequal in her fair domain, 
And genius springs to fresher life ; 
Her bells, a very sea of chimes. 
Give to the air in wave-like rhymes 
The poem of the holier strife. 

Columns of grandeur and of grace. 
With hero form, or name, or face, 
Her ancient pride and reverence show, 
And art with nature's gifts competes ; 
Her homes are palaces, her streets 
Are classic with the death of Poe. 



(67) 



^g BALTIMORE. 



She sits beside the ocean gates, 
The market-place of wealthy States, 
Of many iron ways the goal ; 
On intellect's supremest height 
She sits beside the gates of light, 
A very city of the soul. 



THE GHOST OF FASHION. 

As I was walking down the street, 

My finest broadcloth airing, 

A figure there I chanced to meet 

Who seemed to need repairing. 

A suit of quite ^^/^suited clothes 

His lanky shape adorning, 

I raised my glass to cut him dead, 

Said he, "Kind sir, good morning." 

" Now who the de'il are you ? " said I. 

"Oh, don't get in a passion," 

Said he ; " I'll tell you who I am : 

I am the Ghost of Fashion." 

The scams of all his garments seemed 

The needle to be needvc\'g^ 

And from his threadbare looks I deemed 

He was to seed proro^^^^ing. 

His boots 'twere bootless now to scan. 

It would not mend the matter ; 



(69) 



70 THE GHOST OF FASHION. 



And for his hat, 'twould make a man 
As mad as any hatter : 
It tempted one most sore to try 
Its ill-shaped crown to smash in, 
But there was something in his eye 
That passed off all my passion. 

" Pray, hearken to my Z^/*?," he said ; 
" And in re/^/iation, 

You may retail it to your friends, 

To entail their recreation. 

'Tis not a tale of wondrous length, 

Though mighty woes enveil it ; 

And should their weight exhaust your strength, 

I promise to curtail it — 

A tale in darkest woe engloomed, 

A tale with sorrow drooping, 

A tale of heaven-born genius doomed 

To most \mgen\2iS. stooping. 

" A wealthy father's only son, 
He loved me very dearly ; 
So dear was I, I used to run 
Out all his income yearly. 
The best of vestments then I had 
That eye could wish to see ; 



THE GHOST OF FASHION. 

But my investments now, alas ! 
Have got the best of me. 
I was upon the topmost shelf, 
In brightest colors flashing. 
But faded now my former self — 
I'm but the Ghost of Fashion. 

" My honored sire went off the hooks ; 
In grief for which disaster 
I hid from friends my sorrowing looks, 
And 'went it' all the fiaster. 
My mournful face might not be seen 
In common haunts of pleasure. 
Which for the scenes behind the screen 
Afforded me more leisure. 
The banquets rare which soothed our care, 
In wine and wit surpassing, 
Proclaimed the man whose ghost you scan 
The beau-ideal of fashion. 

'•' Such were my mourning days ; and when 
They'd passed in quiet fun out, 
I sought the track of life again, 
Resolved my course to run out. 
It was a dashing course for me ; 
Of course I ran it gaily ; 



71 



72 THE GHOST OF FASHION, 

My turn-out was declared to be 

The best one out, and daily 

My faultless wine, my dinners fine, 

My style so gay and dashing, 

Made me the rage, and on life's stage 

I was the man of fashion. 

" The sands of life run very fast ; 
Its soap, alas ! runs faster ; 
And he who lives upon the past 
Finds limit to his /(T;^ture. 
Nursing at home a fit of gout. 
What was my consternation 
To see my notes, whose time was out, 
Come in for liquidation. 
When noted for my wealth, they seemed 
Notes of accommodation ; 
Their faces now defiant gleamed 
Notes of interrogation. 

"' How different their look from when 
In flusher days I gave them 
Unto the sleek and oily men 
Who took them in to shave them ! 
When first I uttered them, their Vv'eight 
And worth were uncontested ; 



THE GHOST OF FASHION. 73 

A weighty matter now, too late 
I saw their worth protested. 
Careless they went, but now they tell 
Upon each anxious face 
An interest whose principal 
'Twere difficult to trace. 

" I mortgaged what I had on hand, 
I staved them off a quarter ; 
I found a wealthy heiress, and 
In matrimony sought her. 
Not in a sentimental mood 
Of romance did I woo her, 
But from the dread of being sued 
I made my suit unto her. 
Resolved anew life's pathway through 
From virtue ne'er to falter, 
Bridling my pride, I led my bride 
Unto the bridal altar. 

"Oh, who can tell the joy with which 
I claimed her as my own ! 
Young, gifted, beautiful, and rich. 
All mine, and mine alone ! 
Her face was fair, her bright eye shed 
A lustre most divine, O ! 

G 



74 



THE GHOST 01' FASHION. 

Her form was loveh', and 'twas said 

She had a mint of rhino ; 

And, though our hearts were trained to shun 

All sentimental passion, 

We were two brilliant offerings on 

The glittering shrine of fashion. 

" Our honeymoon in rapture passed, 
My quarter too was ended, 
And from the heights of bliss at last 
To facts I condescended ; 
And when in her astounded ear 
My tale of woe was told, 
I, in return, was doomed to hear 
That I too had been sold ; 
For dowerless and penniless. 
My bride, so gay and dashing, 
Had sought, in aid of her distress, 
A man of wealth and fashion. 

" Oh, who can tell the rage of each 
At the dissimulation 
That joined our fortunes, but to teach 
Our fortunes' true condition ! 
Venus was she before to me, 
And I was her Apollo, 



THE GHOST OF FASHION, 75 

But now, alas ! our fortune's glass 
E.evealed two heartless, hollow 
Victims of ire, whom Grundy's lyre 
Had taught the truth that passion 
Won't feed the fire whose blazing pyre 
Illumes the shrine of fashion. 

■The indignant eye and scornful lip 
With neither might comport ; 
And useless now our partnership, 
We were resolved to part ; 
Not in the manner sung by bards, 
With tears and sighs distracted, 
Regardless, speaking kind regards, 
For unknown parts we parted. 
Though either trifling heart was rife 
With rage, a wise discretion 
Restrained from strife the man and wife 
Who ruled the stage of fashion. 

' My better-half was gone, but yet 
My griefs were not half ended : 
Upon my house proclaimed ' To let,' 
A flight of bills descended. 
Wakened one morning by loud talk 
And most infernal clamor, 



76 '^^E GHOST OF FASHION. 

I was knocked up to hear the Auc- 
Tioneer's relentless hammer, 
Knocking down to half the town 
The chattels which no ration- 
Able person would buy to curse one, 
Except a man of fashion. 

" The fear lest death withdrav/ the breath 
We draw is truly dreadful ; 
The surgeon's lance, the dentist's glance, 
May fill a body's head full 
Of pallid fear ) the tale we hear 
From Eld of sword suspended 
In middle air by a single hair 
Has much of horror blended : 
But sword of fate, nor envy's hate, 
Nor vulture's beak Caucasian, 
Had half the stings this hammer brings 
Unto the man of fashion. 

" Its cruel lustre on him shines 
At dinner, rout, and frolic ; 
On viands sweet and richest wines 
It casts a shade of colic. 
Your Vv'ife appears in diamonds pure. 
You're tempted sore to d — n her 



THE GHOST OF FASHION. 77 

Extravagance, which won't obscure 
The shadow of the hammer, 
Which with the fear lest every year 
Usher the dreaded crash in, 
Uncompromising, terrifies 
The fated man of fashion. 

" Why lengthen out the harrowing tale ; 
'Twas not a lengthy matter ; 
Suffice it that, with anger pale, 
Amid a dreadful clatter, 
I saw my costly wares the scoff 
Of many wary meddlers, 
My gems of vertu walking off 
With tradesmen, Jews, and pedlera ; 
While plate, and glass, and China pass. 
And join the general crash in, 
Each seems a bell to ring the knell 
Of the ruined dupe of fashion. 

" My pictures all with shame aglow. 
Now turned their backs on me ; 
Statues once mine, in statu qtw, 
Minus were found to be. 
I knew my horses to be fast. 
But though they now went faster 



78 THE GHOST OF FASHION. 

Than I had dreamed they could, alas ! 
They brought me but disaster j 
The winnings were declared to be 
For those who in these matters, 
Although they had the best of me, 
Were surely not my betters. 

" As Marius his sad watch kept 
'Mid ruins Carthaginian, 
As Xerxes saw his armies swept 
From off the waves Euxinian, — 
When silence had succeeded sound, 
I stopped to take my soundings. 
Then bade farewell to fortune's round. 
And all its fair surroundings. 
But even as in the passions' death 
Still reigns the ruling passion, 
Never until my latest breath 
Can I resign the fashion. 

" And now, whene'er I chance to view 
From fashion's upper shelf 
A piece of goods whose gaudy hue 
Recalls my former self, 
I must pour forth into his ear 
My irritating sorrow, 



THE GHOST OF FASHION. 

Hoping a sympathetic tear, 

If nothing more, to borrow. 

My friend, with luckier fools engrossed, 

Please give a slight donation 

To him who bravely fought and lost 

Upon the field of fashion." 



79 



THE FIRST CHRISTMAS STORY. 

"A VIRGIN shall conceive and bear a son." 
So spake the prophet of the starry eye. 
"Along his veins a mortal tide shall run ; 
His flame of life shall kindle, burn, and die ; 
Yet underneath his mortal guise shall lie 
The secret of the Omnipresent Will ; 
His name shall spread beneath the circling sky, 
His blood the veins of future times shall fill. 
And saints shall quaff the tides that ruffian hands 
shall spill." 

The stars looked coldly on the mist-veiled sea. 
The chill winds whispered to the shivering trees ; 
The cock, impatient of the morn to be. 
Raised his shrill voice : the all-surrounding seas 
Sighed to the shore and moaned along the breeze ; 
The impatient charger pawed the stable floor ; 
Far from pomp's pride and wealth's luxurious ease 
(So) 



THE FIRST CHRISTMAS STORY. 8 1 

Sweet ^Mary lay in agony, and bore 
The Christ whose name shall live when we shall be 
no more. 

"Where is the King unto our nation born?" 
The wise men said ; " for we have seen his star 
Within the East, and through the mists forlorn 
Of doubt's dim night the light of hope afar 
Breaks on the world, and Phoebus' glittering car 
Mounts a new heaven and lights up a new earth : 
No more the fear of death's dull gates shall mar, 
But from this desert of affection's dearth 
The ransomed soul shall win a realm of kindred 
worth." 

Within a lowly home of Bethlehem 

They find the mother and the infant King : 

With sacred joy they minister to them, 

And gifts of myrrh and purest incense bring, 

Rich robes, bright gems, and every beauteous thing ; 

And from the realm of the rude t3Tant's sway 

Bring them to Egypt, until time shall fling 

The boast of Herod's sceptered power away, 

And the true King shall claim his endless royal day. 

The story of the generations dead 
Is written in the volume of the ages, 



8 3 THE FIRS T CHRIS TMA S S TOR V. 

The pen of centuries decayed has spread 

Their record on imperishable pages ; 

War, science, literature, or art assuages 

The world's thirst of excitement ; heroes rise, 

Poets, divines, philosophers, and sages, 

Each towers in his small way toward the skies, 

And dies the heroic death his followers eulogise. 

The lives of mighty men have been forgot. 
Races are lost and nations sunk in night ; 
The laws that were of olden time are not. 
Great lies of error and great truths of light 
Have passed away for ^ye from human sight ; 
The ashes of the centuries lie cold 
Upon the Virgin's breast, yet pure and bright, 
Before the eyes of all the earth unrolled, 
That Christmas story lives and has not yet grown 
old. 



AMERICA. 

From a grand empire of the olden ages, 

Now wrecked and voiceless 'neath the surge of time. 

Comes down the tide of years, on history's pages, 

The record of a prophecy sublime. 

• 

A prophecy of one whose spirit, turning 
Into the past, from out its vision brought 
An eidolon of hope, with sacred yearning 
For generations and for races fraught. 

"In the world's earliest years," he said, "uprising 
From the high will of man's unwasted powers 
There was a land of beauty, realizing 
The ideal of Liberty : temples and towers, 

" And cities, gorgeous as a painter's vision, 
Beyond whose confines of tranquillity, 
Hill, vale, wood, field, beneath the pure elysian 
Sloped fondly dov/n to the embracing sea. 

" But churlish Nature, envious of man's pleasure, 
Against the feeble barriers of that shore 

(33) 



84 AMERICA. 

Hurled the mad waves, and all its life and treasure 
Sank to the deeps : but it shall rise once more." 

Such was the hope he left, and generations 
From birth to death its semblance sought in vain. 
Its like was not among the olden nations. 
Its image showed not in the Eastern main. 

At length Columbus, pondering the story. 
And gazing on the Atlantic's western slope, 
Beheld the semblance of its fabled glory 
Reflected from the setting star of hope. 

With ships and men which, an ambitious throne, 
In hope of new domain and power, supplied, 
He plowed the sterile waste of seas unknown, 
His will the pilot and his hope. the guide. 

America in the far Western waters 

Atlantis-like upreared above the waves 

Her verdant shores j her dusky sons and daughters 

In awe beheld his ships and pale-faced braves. 

But not with glittering spires and gilded towers 
Was the expanse of hill and valley crowned ; 
Bttt grand old forests, and primeval bowers, 
And hostile tribes, and savage beasts they found. 



AMERICA 85 

And not to ease the soil or clime invited, 
But unto days of toil and nights of strife ; 
The aborigines their love requited 
With gleaming tomahav/k and scalping-knife : 

Proof unto man that though in idle visions 
The search of truth and knowledge may commence, 
They can be found but in the stern decisions 
That toil must win through bold experience ; 

Proof positive that not from sages hoary, 
From philosophic chart or studied rhyme, 
But from the living heart must spring the glory 
That lights our pathv/ay to the better time. 

And pilgrim bands unto the youth and beauty 
Of the new world across the Vv'aters came. 
Votaries of change, power's wrecks, or sla.ves of duty, 
Exiles of bigotry, and serfs of fame. 

They felled the forest and upheaved the quarry 
To forms of architectural strength and show, 
They chased the savage foe until afar he 
Sought the wild haunts of bear and buffalo. 

Through battled years of revolution's night 
They bore aloft the banner of the free 



S6 AMERICA, 

O'er fire and blood, that we, their children, might 
Receive and keep the boon of liberty. 

They left to us a land more lovely far 
Than ancient sage or poet ever dreamed. 
Within whose sky of peace hope's magnet-star 
In deathless brilliance on the nations beamed, — 

A light whose povver, in deeps of old mausolea, 
The void eyes of truth's martyred saints might own \ 
A light which pallid ghosts might seek as holier 
Than that vdiich glimmers from the spirit-throne. 

The lost Atlantis from the Western waters 

Rises in beauty o'er the surge of time, 

And gathers to her shore earth's sons and daughters 

Of every race^ degree, nation, and clime. 



THE LIGHT OF LOVE. 

The Lighthouse at the mouth of the river Gironde, the mari- 
time entrance of the port of Bordeaux, is said by mariners to 
be one of the finest in the world. The following is, with the 
exception of the names used, the true story of its construc- 
tion. 

Above the wave there towers a light 
Where the Gironde, from land's confines, 
Gives to the sea the sails of white 
That waft the blood of Bofdeaux's vines 
To swell the trade of foreign marts, 
To warm the veins of future times, 
To wake in foreign eyes and hearts 
The light and vtarmth of sunnier climes : 
It crowns the isle whose sands divide 
The channels of the river's tide. 

Once dark and rayless as a dream 

Of death to the betrayer's breast 

That shore, save when the pale moonbeam 

In ghostly light its outline dressed ; 

And now when past the wave and storm 

(87) 



88 THE LIGHT OF LOVE, 

The sailors greet the river's tides, 
About some ancient tar they swarm, 
While up the stream the vessel glides. 
To hear the story of that light. 
Their guide and guardian of the night. 

When they who tread the downward path 
Of age's slope were young and fair, 
Pierre to the billows' wrath 
Took forth his ship, intent to bear 
The perils of the deep once more ; 
Whence with the gain of dangers past, 
Returning to his native shore, 
By wave or cloud no more harassed, 
With fair Fidele, his promised bride, 
He hoped for life on land to bide. 

With goodly crew and pennons flying, 
His freighted vessel sought the seas ; 
Albeit there seemed a voice of sighing 
Haunting betimes his native breeze ; 
He gained his port beyond all danger. 
Received rich recompense, set sails, 
And from the traffic of the stranger 
Consigned his freight to homeward gales 



THE LIGHT OF LOVE. 

Laughter seemed calling from the shrouds, 
And hope sat smiling in the clouds. 

The voyage passed, above the wave 
Once more his native land appears, 
As night's descending shadows lave 
Its welcome outlines. Loud the cheers 
That greet the vision. Happy hearts 
Are on that ship, and eyes alight 
With the glad flame that hope imparts, 
Look out upon that shore to-night ; 
And he who owns Fidele's thrall, 
Is brightest, happiest of all. 

But Death, ascending from the deep. 
Holds revel on that shore to-night ; 
The elemental genii sweep 
The darkened heavens in wailing fright ; 
The pallid folds of mist-wrought shrouds 
Swell and grow dark with demon forms, 
Who pile the buhvark of the clouds 
To check the flaming god of storms. 
Dissolved beneath whose piercing flash 
They fall. Before the whirlwind's crash 

Borne onward toward a fatal rock, 

The fear-winged ship surmounts the waves ; 



89 



90 THE LIGHT OF LOVE, 

Quivering in agony of the shock, 
She parts, and when the morning laves 
Her golden locks in the blue waters. 
Whose waves in measured ebb and flow 
With treacherous smile belie the slaughters 
That tinged their midnight reign of woe, 
Nought tells of ship, or crew, or store, 
Save Pierre's body on the shore. 

Fidele bent with reeling brain 
And breaking heart above the pale 
Dead form. "In vain," she cried, "in vain 
He risked the wave and braved the gale, 
Since Death, dread rival of my love, 
Has won him to his icy arms, 
And to glad spirits from above 
Consigned the life that lit his charms. 
For me the desert sand of years 
Has but one joy, the fount of tears. 

" But other ships," she musing said, 
"Will seek this shore, and other maids 
Will tremble when the ocean's roar 
In foam-white v/rath the shore upbraids ; 
And lest the unrelenting sea 



THE LIGHT OF LOVE. 91 

Should quench the flame of other breath, 
Since Death has won my love from me, 
My love for him shall conquer Death ; 
For o'er his grave I'll rear a light, 
A guide and guardian of the night." 

So said, so done. Fidele's gold, 

Ruler of labor, art, and skill, 

The toil of minds and hands controlled ; 

And,, product of a woman's will, 

As fair a tower, as powerful light 

As earthly shore hath ever known, 

A queenly ruler of the night 

Radiant upon her marble throne. 

Arose the treacherous waves above, 

A light of life, a light of love. 

The light of life, how bright its ray 

Above the death-strewn shore of years ! 

The light of love, how happy they 

Whose care-tossed hearts its brilliance cheers ! 

So gleam the subtle sparks that fire 

With heavenly hope this earthly frame ; 

So woman's heart, a funeral pyre 

Burning: to ashes o'er a name, 



92 



THE LIGHT OF LOVE. 

Blends with the flame, its life-blood feeds 
The glorious tinge of noble deeds. 



L'ENVOIE. 

Farewell ! Forever ? 
I know not. Never 
Doth young endeavor, 
Essaying rhyme, 
Aspire so madly, 
Labor so gladly, 
And die so sadly 
As the first time. 

Farewell ! This token, 
A word half spoken, 
A tablet broken, 
I leave to thee ; 
Prayer, its devotion, 
Love, its emotion. 
And death, its portion, 
Are part of me. 



(93) 



94 UENVOIE, 

If no forsaking, 
No fruitless aching, 
No sad heart-breaking 
Sadden its page, 
'Tis that such measure 
Suits not the pleasure^ 
Swells not the treasure 
Of this our age. 

She flies from sorrows 
Of old, and borrows 
Hopes for her morrows 
In jests and sneers ; 
Magic delusion, 
Scenic illusion, 
Fill with confusion 
Her eyes and ears. 

With wit-tipped lances, 
In wanton dances, 
Burlesque advances 
Adown the lines \ 
A very bawd. Her 
Votaries laud her, 
And crowds applaud her, 
While Art declines. 



VENVOIE 95 

I, a poor teacher, 
A rhyming preacher, 
A fading feature 
Of mine own time, 
Must with the terrors 
Of thoughts that were hers. 
Blend her late errors 
Into my rhyme. 

Therefore to pleasure 
I give some leisure ; 
Lay some word-treasure 
Before her throne \ 
And if her pages 
Suit not the sages. 
The fault's the age's. 
And not mine own. 

Heroic fire 
And sweet desire 
Shall not expire, 
And keen-eyed thought 
Shall on past scrolls 
And future shoals 
Seek all great souls 
Have ever sought. 



g6 VENVOIE. 



Farewell ! The clashing 

Of blades, the flashing 

Of shields, the dashing 

Of steeds is sped : 

Waves are o'ersweeping 

The fleets ; hosts are sleeping : 

Willows are weeping 

O'er their still bed. 



